dinsdag 17 april 2018

US-UK-France Strike on Syria, The Chain of Events

US-UK-France Strike on Syria, The Chain of Events: Statements, Facts and Speculations

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Featured image: The guided missile cruiser USS Monterey fires a Tomahawk missile in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations, April 14, 2018. (Navy photo by Lt. j.g Matthew Daniels)

THE CHAIN OF EVENTS:

1. Early on April 14, the US, the UK and France delivered a massive missile strike on Syria using warships, fighter jets and strategic bombers. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described the strikes as “harder” than the 2017 strikes on Shayrat military airfield. However, he added that no further launches had been planned for the moment.

“I’d like to address how this evening’s strike were qualitatively and quantitatively different than 2017. Last year we conducted a unilateral strike on a single site. The focus was on the aircraft associated with the Syrian chemical weapons attack in April of 2017.

This evening we conducted strikes with two allies on multiple sites that will result in a long-term degradation of Syria’s capability to research, develop and employ chemical and biological weapons. Important infrastructure was destroyed, which will result in a setback for the Syrian regime. They will lose years of research and development data, specialized equipment and expensive chemical weapons precursors.

The strike was not only a strong message to the regime that their actions were inexcusable, but it also inflicted maximum damage, without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians,” Mattis said during a press briefing.

US President Donald Trump publicly explained his decision to strike Syria in an adress to the nation. He blamed Russia and Iran for providing support to the Assad government, which according to Trump, had been behind of the alleged chemical attack in the town of Douma on April 7. However, no proofs or results of the investigation confirming these allegations were provided by the President.

Another footage of Syrian air-defense missile fired towards tomahawk rockets in the sky of Damascus.

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Separately, an officer of the SADF told SouthFront that the SADF and the Syrian Arab Air Force had lost no assets as a result of the strike. He added that the US-led bloc attack was almost fully repelled. MORE DETAILS

However, the US military once again refused to provide any evidence confirming its allegations over the April 7 Douma “chemical attack” or Assad’s “chemical weapons facilities”. The formal reason is that the evidence is related to “intelligence” issues.

Scientific educational center in Barzah district, By SANA

6. The US says that its forces had targeted Assad’s chemical weapons production and storage facilities. Syria and Russia deny that the Assad government had used chemical weapons in the so-called Douma incident and that the Syrian government is producing chemical weapons. The OPCW investigation has arrived in Syria and soon should start to probe the Douma incident.

7. Russia has called a meeting of the UN Security Council over the US-led strike on Syria. Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia slammed the US and its allies over the strike by saying that the US and its allies had violated the norms and principles of international law. He also described the strikes on Syria as “an aggression against a sovereign state.”

A stance of the US and its allies is that they punished “dictator Assad” for the usage of chemical weapons in Douma. However, they cannot show a proof of the Syrian government’s responsibility because it’s secret.

8. Summing up the recent developments it should be noted that the Pentagon’s version of events reaises the main question: How 76 missiles delivered so little damage to “Barzah Research and Development Center” if all the missiles had reached their targets.

If the version provided by the Russians is true, the question is “How?”. SouthFront contacted some experts over the issue. According to them, the Russian military had possibly used its state-of-the-art electronic warfare (EW) systems to counter the launched missiles. They added that Russia and Iran may have provided the Syrian miltiary with vital intelligence to counter the attack.

If the data provided by the Russian Defense Ministry is confirmed, this will be the first time in the history when some side was able to repel a massive strike of the so-called modern high-precision weapons/missiles. So, in a case of a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia, the Russians will be able to intercept most of the US attacking means suffering a minor damage. Russia’s nuclear strike would be a crushing blow. MORE

According to another group of experts, the US-led massiave missile strike on Syria had an importnat background role. It was a kind of the US training ahead of a possible military action against Iran, actively promoted by the key American ally in the Middle East – Israel. This is why a part of the strike was delivered from the areas of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, which are relatively close to Iran.

In this case, if the Russian statement is confirmed, this will mean that the US and its allies are not capable to delvier a decisive missile strike to defeat Iran in low cost.

A large strike by the US with a Russian limited response and a further limited escalation;

A full-scale military action by the US, a Russian response leading to a start of the regional or global war.

The April 14 situation is close to the Scenario 1. The scale of the US attack shows that Washington may have aimed at Scenario 2 or even Scenario 3. However, actions of the Syrian military assisted by Russia and Iran likely reduced signfiicantly the results of the US strike and it turned into a PR action.